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Gang of Eight aims to stop conservative attacks

The Senate’s Gang of Eight is mounting an aggressive lobbying campaign with one major goal: weaken the conservative opposition to a sweeping immigration overhaul.

Hours after the bill was unveiled after 2 a.m. Wednesday, Republicans began to make their pitch for it on conservative talk radio and by urging their colleagues to hold their fire until they’ve had a chance to analyze it. Their hope is to define the measure as a workable compromise on a highly complex issue, one that will help broaden the GOP’s reach to Latino and moderate voters.

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POLITICO Roundtable: Immigration time lapse

Gang of Eight announces plan

The push is part of a broader strategy to smooth passage for the complex legislation in the Senate, where the idea is to lure more than just a handful of Republican senators. If a broadly backed bill passed the Senate, House Republicans would be hard pressed to reject it, proponents believe.

“Defining the bill quickly is good,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the gang, in an interview. “We’re going to be aggressive in marketing the bill. We’re going to be open minded about making it better. But this is an all-hands-on-deck approach.”

On Wednesday, Graham and Sen. Marco Rubio made the rounds on conservative talk radio, with the Florida Republican planning for more appearances on Thursday. The initial reaction on the right was far less intense than they anticipated, proponents said. Rubio’s offices in Washington and Florida received fewer than 500 calls on immigration Wednesday, with more than 150 of those in favor of his bill, according to a source in his office.

And some GOP senators were circumspect, saying they would wait and see the details of the bill before making their minds up whether to pick it apart.

“I’ll take another look at it,” said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who voted to block the 2007 bill.

“Is that enough for me? I don’t want to say yet. But it was a lot better than I thought it was,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, about the border security measures.

On the left, Democrats tried to shore up their own base. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), another leading supporter, and Democratic senators privately met with a room full of immigration activists to implore them to put aside their fears for the “greater good” of passing the bill. And a senior White House official, Cecilia Muñoz, met with House Democrats in House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s office, offering broad support for the bill, hearing from Democrats worried about elements of the bill’s treatment of undocumented immigrants. The White House would also like the bill tweaked.